Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from folks who being reassured by their spouse that their marital separation should only be “temporary.” However, the spouse who is resistant to this can have their doubts. Essentially, your spouse is asking you to take a huge leap of faith which can bring about all sorts of doubts. It’s not uncommon to wonder if your spouse is only saying this in order to get you to agree to the separation. You might find yourself wondering if he’s just trying to make things sound better than it really is as well.  And you may wonder if he’s ever truly going to come back.

An example of the type of comments that I hear in this situation are things like: “my husband has been telling me that he’s been unhappy since his birthday, about seven weeks ago. It took him about a month to get up his courage to tell me that he wanted a separation. He probably knew that I was going to resist it and I certainly did. I don’t want him to leave. I don’t think that it’s necessary. I think that we will have a better chance of working out our problems if he is here. When I share these concerns with my husband, he tells me that I am worrying too much because he intends for the separation “to only be temporary.” But I don’t completely buy this. I think that he is only trying to sell it this way so that I won’t be too scared to agree. Because what if it’s not temporary? What if he never comes back and this separation eventually leads to a divorce? What should I do? I’m afraid he’s going to go ahead and move out no matter what I do.”

I could certainly understand this wife’s concern. When my own husband moved out for a separation, I was almost certain that he would never come back. And, granted, it did take a while for him to come back. But he eventually did. What helped most was my creating the perception that I was on his side and that I respected myself enough to make my own life a priority. While I can’t decide your course of action for you, I can offer some tips that might help, which I’ll do below.

See If You Can Offer Alternatives Or Delays But Don’t Refuse To Cooperate: I know that it can be very tempting to out and out refuse to separate. You might think that if you tell him that you don’t agree, then he will call the whole thing off. In my own experience, this strategy rarely works and people who comment on my blog seem to agree. Although it may well work temporarily, in the end it often just makes the husband want to leave even more, which might make it harder to get him back.

I think that the better tactic is to offer some alternatives. Consider telling him that if he wants space then that is fine, but you are the one who is going to leave. Then stay with family or friends. Here is the advantage to this. When things calm down, then you can control when you come back home. But if you allow him to move out, then you lose that control. If what he really wants is space, then he may just take you up on this offer.

But if he doesn’t, I think that it’s best not to appear uncooperative – even though I know that this is a very challenging request. But if you argue with him about this or tell him that he’s being unreasonable and selfish, then he’s actually only more motivated to get away from you. However, if show him that you are trying to be supportive of him and you’re trying to help achieve happiness again, then really, his incentive to get away from you is lessened.

Don’t Immediately Assume That You Know What He Is Thinking: It’s very common for the reluctant spouse to approach this with a sense of dread. It’s easy to assume that he’s not being completely truthful when he says that this is probably only temporary. Frankly, neither of you know how things are going to unfold. If you approach this positively and remain upbeat, then your husband really shouldn’t have an incentive to distance himself from you. If you show him that you want to help him get what he wants, then there’s really no reason for him to want to prolong the separation. As soon as he is feeling content and hopeful again, there is no reason why he wouldn’t want to return home.

I know that this is incredibly scary time. I have been there. And I suspected that my separation would turn into a divorce. But thankfully, it didn’t. Plenty of people are able to reconcile during their separation. There’s no reason to believe (especially in these early stages) that you will not be one of them.

If you’d like to read more about my reconciliation process, You are more than welcome to read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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